The Valiant Valet

“And what are we doing today?”

This was asked by our valet as he held the car door open so HoBiscuit could get in to our rental car outside of our Hawaiian hotel. It was a polite question, said in a jovial and cordial tone, most likely to help us feel as if he truly cared in the hopes of us gifting him with a larger tip. He knew, and most guests knew, that his words were nothing but a thin, nearly transparent film of polite animosity, behind which he barely concealed his empty-eyed stare, bored stance and fake smile. But still, like the spawning salmon fighting its way upstream knowing that the end of its journey also meant the end of its very life, our intrepid valet continued to inquire the hotel guests about their health, daily activities and other small-talk niceties just to help pass the time during his terminally boring day.

All of this is just to say that what follows was not his fault.

You see, HoBiscuit and I were on our way to a grand adventure the type of which HoBiscuit had never partaken in before. There would be kayaking down rivers, tractor pulls through forests and farmland, rope bridges, zip-lines, waterfalls, cliff dives, hikes, swims, motor boating and all manner of other good, outdoorsy-type stuff that she had never even imagined she might do on a vacation getaway, let alone during a single seven-hour tour.

By which I mean to say that HoBiscuit was excited.

Some people, when they’re excited, show their excitement by becoming jittery and begin hopping from foot to foot. Some people smile and sweat until they resemble nothing so much as a frog with teeth and an upset stomach. Some people even develop a nervous little laugh when they are excited, sounding to the world like a hyena with the hiccups. But HoBiscuit had none of these afflictions. Instead, as with many, many other people on this earth, when she is excited and nervous, HoBiscuit becomes chatty. And loud.

And our poor valet had unknowingly opened the floodgates.

“We’re going on an adventure tour! It’s going to be sooooo great! We’re going to kayak down the river and then hike to a secluded waterfall where we’ll swing on a rope and jump in the river! Then we’re going to hike some more to a tractor that’s going to take us to another river where we’ll zip-line across and then cross back over on a swinging rope bridge! I think that’s crazy, especially since I’m scared of heights, but how many times do you get to zip-line across a river and cross a rope bridge?! I mean, I guess I’ll be scared, but I think I’ll do it anyway because it might be fun, too. You know? Oh! And then we’re going to hike to ANOTHER waterfall where…”

And on, and on, and on.

The entire paragraph above was transmitted to our valet in the span of time it took for HoBiscuit to take the three steps from the back of the car to the passenger side door he was holding open for her. Try to imagine the look on our poor valet’s face as he was bombarded with far more information than he ever in his short (and growing shorter by the second) life would have ever wanted to know about one of the hotel’s guests. Especially one whose husband was a little stingy with the tips which he depended upon in order to purchase wax for his surfboard. He had only expected a short, “We’re going to the beach.” Or possibly, “We’re going to go shopping.”

If it were a good day he’d get $10 and, “None of your damn business.”

He never expected to be given a step-by-step dissertation on a guest’s entire day’s activities at a volume level WAY past eleven. Many other valets, faced with such a chatty guest, would have become flustered. They might have let slip their professional facade of distant politeness and actually warmed to the person who seemed to so desperately need a friend to talk to like our hapless HoBiscuit.

But not our valet.

He was a consummate professional and, mustering all his years of experience in the valet profession, he managed to hold his vacant smile until HoBiscuit had situated herself inside the vehicle and then, as she continued to bombard him with ever more detailed descriptions of our planned days outing, he spoke over her in a continuous monotone that stopped her excited tirade in mid-sentence.

“Uh-huhthat’sniceokaybuh-bye.”

And then he closed the door in her face.